“Money has had no place to grow for the past seven years; it’s been sloshing around in different places,” Hampel says. “We think a bunch of core deposits might move to money market mutual funds” as liquidity tightens.

“If you have some high-balance accounts in checking,” he adds, “it will leave.”

►Normalized loan delinquency and losses. These grew substantially during the Great Recession.

“My fear was that this would make credit unions more conservative than in the past,” Hampel says. “That hasn’t happened. Credit unions tend to be more risk-averse than stock-based financial institutions, which is good for the share insurance fund in bad times.”

►A mixed outlook for net income, with stable net income for the next few years and healthy capital ratios.

►Strong membership growth. Last year’s membership growth was an impressive 4.1%, and that level should continue.

By comparison, U.S. population growth has been less than 1% during the past five years, he notes.

Still, “we have to overcome a lack of knowledge about credit unions,” Hampel says, citing CUNA’s Creating Awareness Initiative, which aims to do just that. “We want to soften up the market for you so people have a better understanding of what credit unions are and what they do.”

Does your CU offer or plan to offer cannabis banking services?

Champion of America’s Credit Unions

Credit Union National Association is the only national association that advocates on behalf of all of America’s credit unions. We work tirelessly to protect your best interests in Washington and all 50 states. We fuel your professional growth at every level and champion the credit union story at every turn.